Brain Food #744
Schedule in nothingness
Thoughts of the day
Many of us perform jobs that require passive time, room to enable thinking that will subsequently enable better decision-making, and better quality ideas to emerge.
Seemingly boring or lazy activities, literally killing time, can be one of the most rewarding ‘tasks’ we can set ourselves every day. Passive activities can come in many forms: sitting quietly with your eyes closed, looking outside the window, taking a bath.
For many of history’s greatest thinkers, an essential activity that allows productivity to flourish is walking. Albert Einstein allegedly said, “I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.”
Paradoxically, the true essence of productivity might not be to keep producing while focusing on quantity, but to discover the right combination of activities that will enable one to do their best work, with a focus on quality, both of the work and of life itself. Whatever those activities might be, they deserve a spot on your calendar.
If you are doing an end-of-week retrospective, this week try to identify what you didn’t have enough time for, what took up more time than expected, and what should not have taken up any time at all. And, when making your plan for next week, schedule in nothingness.
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